Gamepro is offering a short interview with Blizzard Entertainment's Jeff Kaplan about the much anticipated World of Warcraft expansion, The Burning Crusade. Among other things the interview discusses the reason Blood Elves and Draenei were chosen as playable races.

GP: Were there other playable races considered for the expansion?

JK: Yes, we considered a slew of playable races.

GP: Wisps?

JK: Wisps were just a joke. [Choosing the races] was actually one of the biggest debates on the team, and something that we were really passionately encouraging was debate on what races we should do. We felt like that would lead to the best, most obvious races making it into the game. We had a lot of fun doing that. We did a lot of concepting. I actually don't want to talk about some of the ones we didn't pick because you're probably going to see them surface at some later date.

GP: What made you decide to do the Blood Elves and the Draenei?

JK: Ultimately, they were at a slam dunk. We're going to Outland, and we'd already decided that. Outland is this awesome, epic place in the WarCraft universe. And we knew that was the setting for our first expansion. Blood Elves and Draenei had natural ties to Outland. Outland used to be Draenor, which was the home planet of the Draenei. And in WarCraft III: The Frozen Throne the Blood Elves were obsessed with getting to Outland and for Kael'thas Sunstrider, [Outland] was the center of arcane energy closest to the nether and that's where he wanted to be. The whole race was defined by "Let's get to Outland." They were easy choices ultimately.